Antisphere (2019)

“Antisphere is spiky, revelling in the unease it creates as it twists and turns from ominous silence to punchy high-octane drama, impaling the listener with occasional punctuations of forceful sound […] relishing in the stark contrasts of timbres available to an orchestra. Oscillating between these extremes, this is music-making at its most dynamic.”

“Howard’s lyricism has led to marvellously uncanny results that take vast leaps in pitch and volume in their stride […] triumphant and strange, a shimmering klaxon that sounds like the workings of some near-future mechanism”

“charged with structural tension and packed with dramatic flourishes […] often edgy, even rugged in character […] energetic impact and imaginative breadth”

'A warping and melting of harmony and rhythm, in which intervals collapse into one another, in which time is shrunk and stretched, and in which extremes of density and quietness create a friction that's expressive and geometric.' 

“Antisphere (2019) is both the conceptual opposite of sphere (2017) while also its continuation, with the music gradually encompassing the sound-space (that is, the auditorium) throughout this engrossing and imaginative demonstration of orchestral prowess.”

“sensual – yet diffuse”

“… [Howard] has a very developed ear for some remarkable sonorities and an apocalyptic sense of drama […] a harmony of the spheres for our times, with the LSO bending ears with Howard’s virtuoso orchestration.”